


A Sister's Love

by flipflop_diva



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Crossover, Gen, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 09:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped between life and death, Nico needs help from his sisters — both of them — to survive. Set during the events of Mark of Athena. Includes some very, very, very slight implications of sibling incest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sister's Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minutia_R](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/gifts).



> Minutia_R, you said you like Hazel, so once I read that, I couldn't get this idea out of my mind. I tried a few other ideas, but I just kept coming back to this. It's not exactly what you asked for, but I hope it fulfills some of your expectations and that you enjoy it!

His life was winding down. There wasn’t much time. Not much time at all. Maybe hours. Maybe minutes. Maybe just seconds. He didn’t really know, wasn’t conscious of much, hadn’t been for days, but deep inside, he knew that much. 

His life was winding down. He could feel it seeping out of him. He was going to die, here, caught in a jar, captured by two giants, a pawn in a war.

This was how it was going to end.

But he wasn’t scared. He, more than anyone else in the world, apart from his sisters, knew what awaited him. He floated through the world of the dead almost every day of his life. Now he would join them forever, take his rightful place in the Underworld, maybe the place he had always been meant to take.

He wished Bianca would still be there, wished again she hadn’t made a different choice, hadn’t been reborn, but it was okay. He would be just fine.

He had accepted his fate.

“Not so fast,” came a soft, sweet, familiar voice.

Nico’s eyes flew open. 

The world was blurry at first, hazy. There wasn’t much air left in the jar.

He blinked, tried to make out the figure in front of him. It couldn’t be. 

But it was.

Standing before him, looking like an angel in a white, flowing gown, her dark hair blowing around her as though she were standing in the middle of a park on a breezy day, her brown eyes sparkling, the smile on her face wide, the expression on her face one of gentle understanding ….

It was Bianca.

Nico blinked again. It couldn’t be.

“Bianca?” he finally managed. “But how?”

“That’s all I get,” Bianca replied, and her voice had a gentle tilt to it. “Not even a proper hello?”

“You’re not real,” Nico said. Because she wasn’t, was she? Bianca was dead. Bianca had been reborn. Bianca could not possibly be here. “You’re not here.”

He had heard people say that life passes in front of you before you die. He just hadn’t believed them. But he was dying, and Bianca was in front of him. Maybe he was seeing his life. Or maybe this was just a dream. But he couldn’t dream in the trance, could he? He rubbed his eyes.

“She’s as real as I am,” came a second voice.

This time, Nico stumbled to his feet, whirled around, a feat that should have been impossible in his condition, lying almost comatose in a jar that was quickly running out of air, but he managed it anyway. Again, he blinked in shock.

Hazel. Wearing an outfit that matched Bianca’s, her hair just as wild, her eyes just as expressive.

“What? No.” Nico shook his head, looked from one to the other. “This isn’t real.”

“It _is_ real,” Bianca said. 

“It _is_ ,” Hazel echoed. 

They both stepped toward him, from their opposite sides of the jar, both came closer like they were moving as one, both placed a hand on one of his arms when they got near. Their skin was warm, their touches gentle. He could feel the pressure of their flesh against his. 

A calmness seemed to radiate off them and into him.

“This is real?” he asked again. “But I don’t understand. How?”

He glanced behind him, took in his surroundings. It was the same jar he had been in, just somehow bigger. Or they were smaller. He wasn’t sure. But he could see the scratches he had made as he counted days, could see that the pomegranate seeds had been eaten.

Bianca smiled. “We have come to help you,” she said.

“Help me do what?” Nico asked. He squinted his eyes to try and see through the jar, to see if the giants were out there, watching this. But he couldn’t make out anything. It was as though the room beyond them was filled with mist.

“Help you live,” Bianca said.

Nico frowned at her. “But I’m dying.”

“You don’t have to,” Hazel said. 

“I don’t really have a choice. When I run out of air …”

“You do have a choice,” Hazel said, but that was all he said. She didn’t elaborate. 

Nico still didn’t understand, but he couldn’t stop looking, from one sister to the other. They were both watching him, smiling at him, still touching him.

And then he felt like he was spinning through time, memories of different eras washing over him faster than he could make them out. He and Bianca playing together in a crib of some sort; he and Bianca playing hide-and-go-seek at the Lotus Casino, running in and out of the different rides; he and Bianca huddled together at their boarding school, hiding from some mysterious noise in the distance; he and Bianca, curled up in bed together the night she decided to join the Hunters, the last time they were really siblings; Bianca, a wifty form he tried to bring back from the dead, yelling at him, telling him he was wrong; Hazel, wondering around the Fields of Asphodel; Hazel, gripping his hand as he led her to Camp Jupiter; Hazel, the last time he had seen her, looking strong and beautiful and smiling at him; Hazel, lying broken on the ground, ashen-faced, dead.

Nico gasped. That wasn’t a memory. That was …

“What could happen,” Hazel said.

Nico rubbed his eyes. He felt tired, confused, weak. He still didn’t understand what was going on. He forced his eyes open, looked again at both his sisters. They wore matching looks of concern. It made him wonder what life would have been like if they all three had lived together.

But there was no time for wondering.

“You need to live,” Bianca was saying. “Help is coming, Nico. But you need to hang on until it gets here. You have a role to play. An important role. And Hazel needs you.”

Nico turned to Bianca.

“I let you down,” he said, “What if I let her down too?”

“You never let me down,” she said. “And you won’t let down Hazel. She needs you, like I did. She is there for you, like I was. Trust me. Trust her. Live for us.”

“But what do I do?”

“Just hold on,” Bianca said. “Just don’t let death take you.”

She stepped forward them, wrapped her arms around him, kissed him on the lips, her flesh warm against his, her touch lingering longer than a sister’s should, but Nico didn’t mind. It seemed to warm him, to fill him with life.

“Live for us,” Bianca repeated as she pulled back. “Think of us.”

Hazel touched his arm one more time. 

“See you soon,” she said.

And then just like that they were gone, fading away into the air, as though they hadn’t been there at all. Had they been there at all?

Nico wasn’t sure. He was tired, so tired. He could feel the forces of death tugging at him again, could feel his life force starting to wane away. He was dying.

But no. He needed to live. For Hazel. For Bianca.

He focused on the memories, tried to remember being a kid with Bianca and playing tag and making pillow forts in their hotel room and eating all the pancakes they could fit in their little bellies. He tried to remember their laughter as they threw cotton candy and popcorn at each other and tried to catch it in their mouths. He tried to remember snuggled together on cold winter nights, knowing they would be safe if only they had each other.

They still did have each other. All three of them had each other.

Nico summoned up all the strength he could muster, fought to push death away. He didn’t know if what had just happened had been real, but Hazel and Bianca were real, and he needed to hold on.

Hazel was coming, and she needed him. After all, there was a war to be won.


End file.
